


I’d Find You

by WOL_INDIA



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Case Fic, Coda, Human Castiel, Jealous Dean, M/M, Mark of Cain, Multi, Mystery, POV Castiel, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 12:32:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6116575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WOL_INDIA/pseuds/WOL_INDIA
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The New Team Free Will - Sam, Dean, Charlie and a newly human Castiel go to a high-school to investigate missing teenagers.<br/>Things for Cas get crazy when the others disappear and he's the only one left to solve the case, find the kids, and save his friends. (Oh, and there's is the small issue with the odd feeling in his chest whenever he so much as thinks about Dean.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	I’d Find You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gem_In_Eye](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gem_In_Eye/gifts).



> This Fanfiction was written for the Hunter Chronicles by Gem_In_Eye
> 
> This fic takes place assuming that the Mark of Cain was removed from Dean using an  
> incantation which required Castiel’s grace, leaving him human. It takes place in the fictional  
> town of Lancaster

For Castiel, it is undeniably strange being human. But even though the discomfort might get a little overwhelming at times, the fact that he is able to experience those overwhelmingsentiments, able to feel, perceive and comprehend his emotions without breaking downcompletely makes it worth the trouble.  
Dean and Sam are constantly worried about him, because even though he has been humanbefore – it is still very new to him, still very odd, and still quite difficult. There are times when he forgets to sleep, or overlooks eating for hours, and ends up drained and bewildered. But unlike last time, he doesn’t have to go through it alone. And that makes all the difference in the world.

Earlier when Cas used to have nightmares in his sleeping bag at the Gas n’ Sip where he worked, he had to endure them alone, and couldn’t sleep at all. But these nights he silently crawls in bed with Dean, and though neither of them say a word somehow the nightmares seem to go away. When Cas wakes up in the morning, all rumpled with bleary eyes, he looks at his best friend snoring softly. He’s always curled around Cas tightly, as if afraid that he wouldn’t stay if Dean doesn’t hold him so snug. When he’s asleep he looks a little less weary, a little less burdened.

  
Dean Winchester appears to carry the weight of the entire world on his shoulders, eventhough Cas believes that he is the purest, and most righteous imperfection that humanity has to offer. It is hard to resist looking at him when he is like this, and since he is no longer an angel, Cas does realize that his staring is ‘creepy’. But he can’t help it. It makes him feelstrange, far stranger than the other facets of humanity feel. And when night bleeds into daytime, and Dean wakes up, and the former angel begins to feel uncomfortably flushed in his searching gaze and hurries away.

  
The ‘situation’ with Dean and his angel has never been simple, but now they can both grasp the meaning behind the long glances, the not-so-casual touches, and the vibrant smiles they share. And yet for some reason, they are still to put those things in words, still pretend that this thing between them, which makes Cas’ knees weak and his heart thump and his head turn and his blood rush to certain odd places doesn’t exist.And that’s okay. It is okay because even though a part of him is tired of it, tired of hoping, and tired of waiting for Dean to finally do something to close the gap, Castiel’s quite content with things as they are for now. He is happy. Events in his life might not be majestic, or grandiose, and the days might not be as filled with glory as they were, but there is happiness. A great deal of happiness. Team Free Will has not gone back to hunting after the Mark was removed. They’re trying to take it slow, one day at a time. They do other things – Sam and Cas spend hours in the library, go running, Charlie comes over and they spend hours playing video-games accompanied by loud grunts and shouts. Dean enjoys his time in the kitchen, and the bunker nearly always smells different. Some of his experiments at cooking look peculiar to say the least, but Cas always tries them just to see the look of amused delight on Dean’s face, and there is a lot of laughter in the air. 

  
Cas is currently sitting in the kitchen, staring at Dean’s back as he hums and chops, whistles and washes while he makes dinner. He occasionally asks a question and laughs at the replies he gets, not in an unfriendly way. The companionable silence feels good. Sam is on his present run for Christmas, and has promised to pick Charlie up from the laser tag arena. Dean has promised that he’ll take Cas to the mall to buy gifts soon, and it’s really okay because there’s two weeks to Christmas anyway. After those two return, they are going to look up the papers for a case. He has been feeling ready for some time now. The situation looks good, and as long as they choose a not-too-heavy case for their first attempt back, there is no reason why things shouldn’t go well.

  
The angel has taken to wearing pajamas in the bunker because they hardly leave the place and nevertheless it’s too cold to get out of the warmth inside. His first winters have not been too pleasant an experience, in fact they were quite a nasty shock for Cas. He now insists on putting on sweaters and the fluffy knitted hats they got at a stall near the supermarket everyday. The hats are a bit atypical because of the overly bright colors and the animal ears, but Cas likes them very much. They do make everyone else laugh but it’s better than sneezing all day, and letting his ears turn red. The kitchen is very warm, and smells absolutely amazing. Cas’s stomach lets out a low rumble, and he walks up to the fridge to grab an apple, peeking into the pot of chili on the stove as he does. Dean dips a spoon into it and holds it out, and he tastes it emitting an unconscious groan as he laps it all up.

  
The hunter is smirking at him now, and he realizes that his face is covered with sauce. Dean moves his face even closer to his, which is saying something as they already have very skewed perceptions of personal space with each other. Cas’s breath catches in his chest as his tongue moves near his face, and he slowly gives a tentative lick to the spot just beside his lips. He maneuvers them so Cas has his back to the kitchen counter and Dean has his hands in his hair, his arms around his waist and a question in his eyes as he draws closer. Cas is suddenly very nervous and his head spins as he tries to nod. Just like he always does, Cas loses himself in those perfect green eyes, disheveled hair, pink cheeks from the warmth, full, plump wet lips from his tongue, and it’s going to happen, Dean’s going to do something mad, he’s going to kiss Cas –“We’re back, lovebirds!” shouts out Charlie as the door to the bunker opens. Her hair seems to be streaked with blue and green, they spring away from each other, and the distance is there all over again. “Sonovabitch,” Dean mutters thickly, shaking his head.“So. Are we going to do this?” says Sam putting down his present bags away from his brother and Charlie. Dean puts the lid on the pan he was making chili in and grabs a chair.“Uh.” Groans Dean, his eyebrows knitted together.“We’ve gone over this before. Dean, we can’t stay cooped up in here forever.”“I get that. I do. But Cas.” Starts Dean.“Can speak for himself, thank you very much Dean,” scoffs Cas. “I have told you this before and I’m telling you now – I can hunt. I know how to shoot, and you said it yourself at the gun range yesterday that I’m almost better at it than you two are. I was an angel once, I know how to take care of myself.” He feels a bit irritated, he has spoken about this what seems like a hundred times already and Dean still insists on coddling him all the time. Cas shoots a glare at him, and then turns away.“See! He agrees.” Says Charlie, chirpy and immune to their temporary fights. “C’mon Dean. Your boyfriend is going to be okay. Four people on one case – it’s going to be a cakewalk. Don’t worry, we’ll only go after Christmas - new year, new hunters.”“He, uh Cas. He’s...he isn’t. Not my boyfriend. Shut Up!” stutters Dean as Sam and Charlie begin to laugh. The ex-angel, pointedly refuses to look at Dean.

  
Dean returns to stirring the pot of chili and ignores the other three’s voices from the library.After a while, they watch Game of Thrones in their pajamas on the new flat screen Dean brought to the bunker almost immediately after he realized that Cas was going to stay. The only sounds other than the show are those of Cas offering corrections and pointing out the inaccuracies of the show, Charlie throws a pillow at him after a while and he shuts up.The next morning, Dean wakes up before anyone else does and goes off to the kitchen to make waffles. Cas suspects that it is both to commiserate for his rudeness the previous evening, and to avoid having to face him after what almost happened yesterday.And later over coffee and waffles which Cas promptly douses in maple syrup, the four of them peer over Sam’s shoulders as he types their usual search terms in. There are not many things happening but they do come across a possible vampire’s nest in Richmond. Dean almost has a fit when Charlie suggests they look it up which leads to Sam texting another hunter to cover.

  
An hour into it, they find a possible case in Lancaster, Indiana. “So get this -” Sam begins, “The local high school has reported missing students, who definitely came to school in the morning, never left and it’s like they disappeared in the middle of the day. Since there were high-schoolers involved, the initial reaction of everybody was to think that the kids had simply run off somewhere. But now that the number has reached four, and none of the ones missing even run in the same circles, the parents and school authorities have grown frantic.”“We need to check it out guys, and soon! I mean the case is localized, we wouldn’t even have to get out of the school area and we can work together.” Charlie immediately puts in. “Plus,shit. There are little kiddies and parents involved.”“I agree.” Says Cas. “Although, I hardly think high schoolers classify as ‘little kiddies’.”   
Earlier,hearing about missing children surely would have prompted him to do something but he wouldn’t have felt this way. Now ever since he became human again, it’s been a whirlwind of emotions. Currently Cas feels like he can’t breathe, they need to save those kids.“Of course.” Agrees Sam. “But guys, it will be easier for us to go before the New Year. The school will be closed for winter break, and we’ll be able to poke around easily.”Dean nods, “But the holidays won’t start for another week Sam. Listen Charlie, can you check the school records and find out if they need a new teacher or substitute or something? We need someone on the inside and we can’t really pull off 21 Jump Street any longer.”

  
Turns out, there is an opening for a junior year history teacher which Cas straightaway tells everyone that he is going to fill. He justifies it by saying that he knows more history than perhaps any other human on the planet, but more than that he doesn’t want to work from the sidelines. He knows that if they let Dean have his way with things, Cas would sit around doing absolutely nothing while being babied by him. The Winchesters settle on impersonating FBI agents so that they can interrogate the staff, and Charlie is going to pretend to offer complimentary repair services for the school’s electronic devices so that she can have free reign of the school building.

  
The making of the fake IDs takes a couple of very awkward days where Dean instantly has something important to do whenever he and Cas are in the same room alone, and Charlie emails Cas’s fake resume to the school and he’s immediately called for an interview. The verynext day they leave early in the morning for Lancaster. This road trip is very different from the usual Winchester style. Charlie calls shotgun as soon as they exit the bunker and plops down next to Dean where she drowns out his Led Zepplin by singing show tunes and playing them on her i-pod, and she narrates to a very confused Cas stories about Moondor. 

  
Sam and Cas alternate between staying absolutely silent and debating furiously about the origins of Christmas. They also end up making multiple stops as Cas is unsure about whether he needs to puke or not. It’s not all bizarre though and for Cas, Dean’s face when they stop to eat the world’s supposedly tastiest pecan pie more than makes up or all the chaos. They reach Lancaster early morning on the day of the interview. At the motel Sam asks for two doubles but before the manager can process their request, Dean, blushing furiously asks to change one of the rooms to a single. Sam and Charlie raise their eyebrows and smirk at each other knowingly.

  
He wears one of Dean’s old FBI suits for the interview and comes out to show the others who are having breakfast. Charlie lets out a whistle and looks at Dean as she says, “Sooo dreamy - I told ya.” He kicks her underneath the table and his brother whoops when he misses. Cas sighs as he sits down and ignores all but his scrambled eggs.  
Later when he and Charlie take a bus to Lancaster high, Cas begins chewing on his lower lip nervously. Seeing his distress Charlie gives him a pep-talk and promises to buy him a cheeseburger afterwards. Feeling much better, Cas hopes that he doesn’t seem as weird as Dean always maintains that he is, and takes a deep breath as he goes in for the interview.To his surprise, it all goes really well. The chair of the history department – Jenna Fischer is very pretty, friendly, and easy to talk to. He talks to her about ancient languages, art, designand her knowledge seems to match his own. They spend a long time talking, and she offers him the job on the spot. And although the holidays start in a few days, she asks him to come on one of the days to finish some of the syllabus that the previous teacher left behind, and is important for the end-of-semester tests.  
Jenna also suggests that she take him on a tour of the school and acquaint himself with the building and his responsibilities. Once they exit the room he sees Dean and Sam waiting sothat they can question the principal. Dean winks at him suggestively, and feeling much more relaxed than he had while entering the school, Cas follows Jenna carefully observing everything. Near the auditorium, they also come across Charlie who is busy fiddling with the projector. The situation suddenly strikes Cas as extremely comical as the four of them appear to have effectively infiltrated the school and he bites back a laugh making an odd noise which makes his companion give him an odd sort of look.

  
She introduces Cas to the other teachers who all seem very ordinary to him, and he wishes not for the first time that he could simply use his angelic senses to detect supernatural presence. Sometimes, Cas misses his powers but is always very careful not to voice that infront of Dean who already carries a lot of unnecessary guilt. Finally, Jenna leads him to where he has to sit, she hands him the course books and after he’s agreed to meet her for a review after tomorrow’s class, she leaves him to works on the lesson plan for the next day.

  
Later, he texts Dean while he buys lunch from the cafeteria asking him when they would be leaving. He doesn’t get a reply for an hour, and then he dials his number. The ‘voice’ tells him that the cell is unreachable, and when Cas tries calling Sam and Charlie neither of their phones appear to be reachable either. Confused, Cas takes the bus to the motel alone.Once he reaches the motel, he checks the parking lot and finds that the Impala is nowhere to be seen. Thankfully, he still has the keys to his and Dean’s room and uses them to go inside.Cas racks his brain but doesn’t seem to understand what is going on, because they had decided to grab a bite to eat and return together. He can’t surmise why the others would suddenly disappear on him when they usually are extraordinarily protective of the new human.

  
He checks his cell phone again - there are no missed calls, then he attempts to call the others again, but it doesn’t work. Now, he begins to feel extremely upset and in order to not let his emotions get the better of him, Cas takes out the books Jenna gave him and begins to read.He is more than familiar with everything but has found that when he is troubled, reading is quite pleasurable.

-Cas wakes up from a horrible nightmare with a jolt, and he scrambles around the bed to grab on to Dean as he is used to doing. His hands only find a pillow and he sits upright and opens his eyes when he realizes that he had fallen asleep while reading. Checking the wall clock he finds that it is 9pm, and the others are still nowhere to be seen. After checking his cell phone again, he grabs his trench-coat and rushes out of the room, and frantically knocks on Sam’s room - there is no one inside.  
His annoyance falls away, and a different emotion spreads through him. He rather suspectsthat it is fear. The circumstances seem way too shady for it to be a mere fluke. And the fact that the three of them had gone missing in Lancaster High, the very place where the teens had disappeared makes Cas almost sure that it was very likely that whatever had taken the students had taken his friends too.

  
A shiver runs down his spine which is partly due to the bitter cold, and partly because he knows that it is now up to him and him alone to rescue the others with no help, no experience, and no Dean. His chest tightens and Cas feels like he needs to sit down, his feet  seem to move on their own and before he can comprehend things properly, he finds himself slumped on his bed. He is staring at his feet and his eyes prickle, threatening to grow teary.What if he can’t help them? What if he never sees them again? What if he can never see Dean again? Dean. Dean is the gravity which keeps him from losing his footing, Dean is his guiding star,brighter than any of Cas’s many insignificant pieces. What if there is no Dean to guide him,take care of him, and love him so much even without words that words seem needless?He has always believed that with Dean he has found his place, and sooner or later they are going to be together. Just like they were meant to be – two halves, literally crafted for eachother. And now that future might be lost forever.

  
Cas takes in huge lungfuls of air and tries to sift through his memories to the time when he had spent weeks observing monks meditating at a monastery in Tibet where he was stationed. Slowly, those memories come back to him, and he sits on the bed trying to organize his thoughts. Bit by bit, Cas begins to calm down. He reminds himself that he has more knowledge about the creatures of the dark that even the most gifted of hunters could hope to accumulate in a lifetime. He has battled in the armies of heaven for millennia, and a hunt limited to a small school in a small town is something that is not only going to be possible for him, but also easy.

  
Cas is no ordinary human being, he has been a seraph, And that, that has to count for something. It has to. He realizes that in order to figure out the monster responsible for it all, he needs to make full use of his position as a history teacher, he has to make use of the fact that he is in a place of trust to gain information. He also realizes that it’s probably because of their snooping that Dean, Sam, and Charlie were taken. This means that Cas needs to act completely normal and that nothing he does can attract any attention from whatever is lurking in the school. He goes downstairs to get himself some food, and works on the new laptop Charlie had gifted him.

  
With his more tranquil frame of mind, Cas begins to formulate a plan. Even though he constantly assures himself that saving the others is something he can do, later Cas finds himself unable to sleep. This is the first night Dean and Cas have spent apart after he became human for the second time, and he can’t help but toss and turn on the bed, Dean’s empty space mocking him. He is furious, manic because the righteous man has been taken away from him, so cruelly after they had waited so long, just before it looked like they were finally going to be together, and after all the years they both had spent longing for each other.

  
He thinks about how dreadful it might be for them wherever they are, and his head skips over the even worse alternative that something much more sinister might have happened to them. He tries to read again as it helped him when he fell asleep in the afternoon by accident, but it is a long while before he falls into a fitful sleep which is plagued by horrendous dreams. The next morning Castiel leaves the motel at seven-thirty. By eight am, the new history teacher, Steve Milton, enters Lancaster High. There is nothing conspicuous about him with his slightly frayed grey suit, laptop bag slung over his shoulder, his face set into an easy smile and a cup of espresso from Starbucks in his hand.

  
He has got work to do. Before his class at nine, Cas decides to go to the staff lounge to try and get some information out of the other teachers. He finds that there is only one other teacher in the lounge, Mr. Hobbes. He’d been introduced to the man yesterday, and he had been quite flamboyant about his homosexuality and even made some really work-inappropriate comments trying to ask him out. Yesterday Cas had been slightly wary of his interest but now saving Dean, and the others is of priority. And he knows that if keeps his questions simple enough that he simply sounds curious, he can use Hobbes to his advantage. Keeping this in mind, Cas tries to sound flirtatious by using all the pop-culture knowledge that Metatron gave him.

  
It works. Conveniently for him, Mr. Hobbes who gives him an unsettling smile and asks to be called Mark, is the gym teacher and he knows quite a bit about the missing students. Over the next hour, their conversation enables Cas to decipher what similarities the teens share. It appears that all of them, were quite unnaturally obsessed with something. Jim, the point guard for the Lancaster Leopards was unhealthily focused on his body, and was preoccupied with getting showered with praises for his physique and his performance on court. Jeanie was somewhat of a fanatic of the television show Unnatural, and spent all her time scribbling about and drawing two of its lead actors. Arish had always been overly passionate about his art, and Liam wanted to be a DJ and was irrationally fixated on music.The police knew all this, but since their interests were ultimately too varied to be related, they had not focused too much on them. Cas walks towards his classroom, though his mind remains fixed on the case and he tries to sort through his memories to find a clue about the creature. Some part of him twitches and he gets the feeling that he is forgetting something but the bell rings before he can come up with anything.

  
Entering the classroom, Cas puts his stuff on his desk and looks at the students. Some of them give him half-hearted greetings, while the rest remain stoically unbothered by his presence in the classroom. In all his brainstorming, Cas realizes that he had forgotten his nervousness, and this pleases him as he considers the students with intrigue and begins to speak.“Good Morning children,” he starts and is surprised by the snickers that prompts. “I am MrMilton, and I’m going to be teaching you history. Now, I know that all of you are very intent on pretending that this class is unimportant to you since your holidays begin tomorrow, but I have been told that what I have to teach today is crucial for your exams.” He pauses, and gives the class a small smile. “I don’t require your attention to talk about history, but I’d really prefer it if you listen to me. And truthfully, it will be good for you.” With that, Cas proceeds to narrate all that he has on the French Revolution, and after a while the giggling and eye rolling stops. Most of the students can hear the genuine curious interest in Cas’ voice, others are content to stare at the strikingly handsome teacher talking passionately and after that, there is no noise in the classroom at all except a rough, gravelly one talking animatedly about the storming of the Bastille.

  
After class ends, some of the students catch up with him and introduce themselves and discuss their doubts. In different circumstances Cas would have been delighted, pleased tohave taught something to young human minds but he is worn-out. He’s exhausted after his sleepless night, keeping up the pretense of being an ordinary school-teacher, and trying to be okay without Dean and his attempt at a smile comes out more like a grimace. He tries to answer the queries as best as he can before they shuffle away for their next class. The daypasses by in a flurry of classes, and Cas feels sick. He hasn’t been able to consume anything but insane amounts of coffee the entire day, and his head hurts. After his last class Cas looks at his watch, and realizes that he is late for the meeting with Jenna. He begins walking with a brisk pace, but stops near the students’ lockers when hehears a bit of conversation which includes the missing kid Jeanie.“Dude, you need to tell the police about Jeanie. Even the fucking FBI have started pokingaround, don’t you want them to get her back?” cries one of the girls. Cas waits with batedbreath for the reply, and he tries to move closer so he can stay in earshot. “I do!” snarls the other one. “You know that Mils, shut up. But how am I supposed to tell them that I saw herfighting with an invisible guy just before she like, vanished into thin air. They’ll think I’mmental!” Cas waits to hear more when he realizes that the girls are looking at him fearfully. 

  
As he goes over to them to try to talk to them, they nervously mutter something about getting home early and rush away. He is left standing as he tries to connect the dots and finally figure out what’s behind the disappearances when it comes to him – a Preta. The moment he thinks of it, all the pieces fall into place and he’s left wondering how he didn’t realize it earlier. He has encountered them before, when he and Balthazar were in Asia in the 16th century looking for a lost diadem from heaven’s treasures. Pretas are ghosts of the daylight, they are considered ‘hungry spirits’ in India and China although they exist in other parts of the world as well. They are invisible to the human eye, but can be discerned by humans in certain mental states.

  
Pretas are the spirits of those humans which craved blood in their lifetimes, they are extremely starved with an insatiable hunger for blood, and can only feed on those who are ina psychological state of obsession. His lungs clench as he worries that the creature might be feeding on the children’s blood, he needs to do something fast.Guiltily he realizes that a small part of him is relieved as well, because the Winchesters and Charlie might be broken, but they aren’t fixated on anything in particular. Especially not now when Sam has overcome his demon blood addiction. This means that even though the Preta might have captured them, their blood is useless to it, and they might be unharmed. The thought of being reunited with Dean now that he knows what haunts the school fills him with euphoria, and he tries to formulate a plan. He wonders whether asking Jenna for help would be a good idea. She seemed well versed in lore, if they worked together it would be a much easier job to eliminate the Preta. Cas himself has little familiarity with defeating a creature in human form, he had never needed to adapt any particular ruse when he was an angel. He is still a bit skeptical about involving her in the hunt, but the options are very limited and it seems dangerous to wait when there is still the possibility of more students disappearing.

  
As he rushes into her office, Jenna looks anxious on seeing the urgency on his face and immediately asks if she can help. Cautiously, Cas proceeds to tell her about the conversation he’d heard, the information he’d gathered about the missing students, and what he thinks is probably behind it. He doesn’t mention anything about the Winchesters or hunters, trying to convince her that he is as taken by surprise as she is. As he speaks, Jenna’s eyes go from perplexed to exasperated to horrified, and Cas doesn’t know what to make of it. It’s only when she stops him, and tells him that she believes him that he allows himself to breathe a sigh of relief. She tells him that she is in possession of a translation of the Garuda Puran, one of the oldest books of human civilization which elaborates in depth about unholy creatures like the Preta. And as they pore over the pages of the translated volume, they discover that eliminating a Preta is easy – all you need to do is get a priest to perform a blessing ritual, and the spirit will attain salvation. But if they sanctify the entire school campus to ensure that the preta is gone, it will be nearly impossible to find where the missing humans are. The creature is known to take away its prey to another dimension where it resides to keep them from being rescued.

  
They need to take blood from the creature and use it to draw out the victims from where they have been hidden.They obviously cannot perform any rituals during the school hours – they’d both lose their jobs, and probably be handed off to the police. And even though losing his job wouldn’t make much of a difference to Cas, he knows that he can’t be responsible for single handedly making a mess out of Jenna’s life. They decide that Cas is going to go out to the Impala to get what they need, and then stay hidden until after the janitors and detention students are gone.

  
Afterwards, he will be the one performing the séance. Meanwhile he tells Jenna that sheneeds to find a Hindu priest capable of performing the blessing. The nearest temple is quite a few miles away according to her phone, and as Jenna rushes off to the parking lot, Cas sits down on the floor of the office and closes the doors. He nervously reads the Puran while he waits for the short hand of the clock to reach four. After a while, he ventures out of the school to check whether the building is completely empty. It is now the grey area of time between the school closing and the night watchmen arriving. He needs to work fast.Cas hurriedly begins to draw the sigils on the floor, and then reads out the Sanskrit chant meant to bring out the preta, _“Aakasha vayahuh, vayahuh agnihi, agnihi rapaha, aghyakta_ _prithvihi, pratogya bho bhajaraha ho gaye ho rhe anamha annha kuruswaha.”_

 _  
_ The phantasm that appears almost makes him shrivel in disgust. With sunken mummified skin, narrow limbs, enormous belly, and red eyes the preta looks like something from a very bad dream. It is always surprising for Cas to realize that the way things appear to him now is very different from the way they used to, and he is filled with repulsion, and the need to have Dean close. Amid snarling noises, growls, and screeches Cas manages to procure the blood from the preta who is powerless inside the summoning circle. A little while later, he gets a call from Jenna and he immediately runs to the door of the school near the cafeteria and uses the key she gave him to let her and the sadhu in. The man looks utterly confused and out of place in the school with his saffron robes, but takes it in stride as  they hurry to the room with the preta.

  
When Jenna enters the room, her face turns ashen with fear as she looks at the gruesome spirit. Cas takes her hand to calm her down, and she buries her face into his shoulder. They both stand in silence as the priest performs the sacraments breathing shakily, and leaves as soon as the preta ebbs away even without accepting the money Jenna hands out to him.Both of them are feeling very nauseous as they perform the spell to release the victims. He doesn’t know where the pig blood for the ritual came from, as it was the only thing the Winchesters didn’t already have. But when he looks at Jenna questioningly, her face contorts into an odd smile as she says, “Don’t even ask.”  
They don’t even know if the spell has worked but something in his chest tells him that it has,Cas really wants to believe that he is right about this. They run through the corridors shouting for his friends and the teens to reply. The relief that courses through Cas’ veins as soon as he sees Dean, Sam, and Charlie walking towards them carrying the kids is immense. The teens look wounded, ill, and fatigued but thankfully also seem to be alive.The rest of the evening passes by in a blur. Cas and Jenna manage to get the kids out of theschool, into her car, and to the hospital. The others desperately need food, and they sit in thehospital’s canteen, eating. Dean brings him a sandwich and says, “Eat this Cas, please. Look, I know you probably haven’t eaten all day. C’mon, the kids are going to be okay.” Cas wants to thank him, and tell him how grateful he is to see him safe but, he is so tired that words seem to fail him and all he can do is wait as they try to find out the kids’ names and contact their guardians.

  
The kids have suffered blood losses, and have odd bite marks all over them which look very suspicious, but it is only when the parents and police have been called that Cas really feels that he is capable of leaving. As soon as they are told that the police is on their way, Jenna tells him that she’s going to be okay, and that they should leave before the police arrives. She promises that she’ll handle all of the questions, hugs him and kisses him on the cheek. It is evident from her face that Jenna is shaken by the whole affair and he doesn’t think that she’ll ever want to see him again and relive today. Cas grows teary eyed as he says goodbye to the very first friend he made as a human and as the four of them drive to the motel, he finally allows himself to break down. The others have been mostly silent through the whole thing, and they all seem very, very tired. There is nothing to do but crash as soon as they reach their rooms. It has been a grueling couple of days, but Cas feels that he is stronger because of it. He knows that he can handle a case on his own, but he also knows that he is much better off not working by himself. His need to have Dean beside him is clearer than ever. The whole experience has given him perspective, and the self-confidence he didn’t know he lacked in the first place.

  
Cas’ sleep addled brain decides that if Dean doesn’t make the first move, he is going to do it himself. With that in mind he leans towards Dean to tell him what he is thinking, but before he can say anything, sleep takes him and he curls against his best friend and dozes contentedly without any nightmares plaguing him for once.***The next morning Cas wakes up squinting at a beam of sunlight which is inconveniently falling on his face. He tries to block it out with his hands when he hears Dean’s laughter.“Wuttimizzit?” he asks him.“Much too late for you to be in bed, c’mon get up. Let’s get breakfast, I bet the Sam Sasquatch is dying to hear about your ‘parade with the Preta.” Sniggering at his own silly joke, Dean hands him a cup. It’s filled with green tea, and Cas smiles thinking about how much he loves being human some days, and how good it feels to have Dean taking care of him again. He takes a deep breath to sniff the tea leaves.“So…” says Dean looking away, “That chick – Jenna was it? Looked like you guys hit it off. I know you were upset when she asked us to leave, d’you want some tips on how to ask her out on a date? She’ll come around, I can help.” When he turns towards Cas, he is grinning. But for once he is able to see beneath the cavalier attitude and see the hurt in Dean’s eyes.He stops sipping his tea, and looks at Dean wondering why people refuse to go for what they want, refuse to look at something that is staring them in the face and then he does something he really wants to. He grabs Dean’s arm pulling him on the bed, and tells him, “No, Dean. The only person that I want to ask out on a date – is you. ” He then shuts the hunter up with a press of his lips and as they lie on the bed kissing each other breathless, he feels relaxed, he feels complete, and humanity feels effortless and easy for once.

  
Because there is no creature, no celestial being, no puny spirit that can keep them apart. In a hundred lifetimes, in a thousand worlds, in any version of reality – they’d find each other.They’d find each other and choose each other because Dean and Castiel are endgame,whatever the story may be. In the coming days, Dean and Cas spend hours exploring each other, discovering each other’s little pleasures, and falling even more in love if that is possible. They visit the mall, decorate the tree, bake gingerbread, and the hunter shows the angel all the little things that make Christmas so special for humans. They go ice-skating when Cas says he wants to, they do anything and everything they both have always wanted to do but never could. It makes Charlie and Sam feel strange, and they pretend to gag, but for once Cas knows that Dean doesn’t mind. For when they interlock their mitten covered fingers, Cas pulls down his silly hats, and they visit tiny hole-in-the-wall diners for cocoa and pie, Dean and Cas find something they had never even dared to look for. They find something neither of them ever thought they deserved – perfection.~ Fin

 


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